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Theory of a continuous bandwidth-tuned Wigner-Mott transition

Cornell Affiliated Author(s)

Author

Seth Musser
T. Senthil
Debanjan Chowdhury

Abstract

We develop a theory for a continuous bandwidth-tuned transition at fixed fractional electron filling from a metal with a generic Fermi surface to a "Wigner-Mott"insulator that spontaneously breaks crystalline space-group symmetries. Across the quantum critical point, (i) the entire electronic Fermi surface disappears abruptly upon approaching from the metallic side, and (ii) the insulating charge gap and various order parameters associated with the spontaneously broken space-group symmetries vanish continuously upon approaching from the insulating side. Additionally, the insulating side hosts a Fermi surface of neutral spinons. We present a framework for describing such continuous metal-insulator transitions (MITs) and analyze the example of a bandwidth-tuned transition at a filling, ν=1/6, for spinful electrons on the triangular lattice. By extending the theory to a certain large-N limit, we provide a concrete example of such a continuous MIT and discuss numerous experimental signatures near the critical point. We place our results in the context of recent experiments in moiré transition metal dichalcogenide materials. © 2022 American Physical Society.

Date Published

Journal

Physical Review B

Volume

106

Issue

15

URL

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85141470919&doi=10.1103%2fPhysRevB.106.155145&partnerID=40&md5=5b915dfb8ca0fa55b49f59c7cff5c58d

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevB.106.155145

Group (Lab)

Debanjan Chowdhury Group

Funding Source

1745302
DE-SC0008739
2020213
651440

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